


You've Become a Meme

by AdventureAddict



Series: You've Become a Meme [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Fluff, Gen, Humor, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Light-Hearted, Memes, Modern Era, Modern!Ed, Nerdiness, One Shot, Time Travel, unicorn cat mermaid socks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:29:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26869705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdventureAddict/pseuds/AdventureAddict
Summary: After a few years of Ed being in the modern world, Al struggles to understand his brother. What the heck is a "yeet," anyway? Why do rickrolls seem to have nothing to do with rolling? Who thought cats, mermaids, and unicorns all needed to be one creature? Just a random mental image that popped in my head, so I wrote a thing based around it.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric
Series: You've Become a Meme [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967398
Comments: 3
Kudos: 51





	You've Become a Meme

Al knew that he and Ed had been separated by a weird time glitch for a few years, but honestly, he had thought that it wouldn't really mean anything. After all, he was still Al, and Ed was still Ed. Even if Ed had spent a few years without Al getting used to this new modern world that still seemed so foreign to Ed, well, that wouldn't change the fact that they were inseparable, right? Nothing could change that they were brothers and loved each other more than anything.

And for the most part, Al was right about that. They still got along famously, even if sometimes Al had no idea what Ed was trying to say or if "yeet" was even meant to be a word. If it was a word, it was apparently one of Ed's favorites, which automatically made Al assume it had to be dirty.

Still, Al knew that Ed was consciously trying to tone himself down for Al's sake. He could tell when Ed was laughing at the weird black device in his hands, would go to show Al and then would suddenly pause and backtrack, saying that he'd forgotten Al wouldn't understand it. Sometimes he'd ended up showing these jokes to Al anyway, and yep, Ed was right. Al really _didn't_ understand. And sometimes he worried that maybe all these differences did matter, that maybe they had grown apart too much in the years they'd been separated, if they couldn't even seem to speak the same language anymore. Al wondered if Ed had been this lost when he'd shown up in this world, or if he had just somehow caught on to things like "rickrolling" without even having to try. Something about the humor of this time seemed like it had been made just for Ed, and maybe that was what confused Al the most-the fact that suddenly, _everyone_ thought this was all hilarious, not just Ed.

Al tried to pretend all of this didn't really bother him even when it did, but sometimes there were moments where it all came crashing down, even if only for a minute. That day was one of those moments.

He couldn't even remember why he'd gone to go bother Ed in the first place. It had been something silly like trying to figure out how some device or something worked. It seemed like Al was always struggling with these devices while they seemed as natural to Ed as breathing. Al had tried knocking on Ed's door, of course, but when he heard the music faintly blaring through the wood, he knew that Ed probably couldn't hear him. So Al had ended up pushing the door open just a crack, ready to close the door and run back out quickly if Ed got mad at him.

Instead, he ended up freezing as he stared at the sight in front of him, trying to make sense of what was going on.

Ed was in the middle of the room, hopping around and banging his foot on the ground in an animated way Al wasn't really used to seeing unless Ed was fighting someone. Instead, this was a sort of gleeful... dance? Was that supposed to be dancing? It looked more like Ed was trying to... break something.

And then there was what Ed was wearing. He was just wearing his usual plain boxers on his bottom half, but his upper half was covered in a striped rainbow shirt with a graphic of a middle finger in the center of the shirt. And on his feet were knee high lavender socks with... what looked like a cat-unicorn-mermaid on them. His hair had been pulled back in some sort of messy bun, as if he couldn't be bothered to do more than that.

"Take that money, watch it burn! Sing in the rhythm the lessons-" Ed choked as he turned in his weird destruction dance and noticed Al standing there and staring at him. Ed made a nervous sound that was somewhere between a cough and a laugh, stopping his "dance" to reach up and scratch the back of his head. "Oh, Al. I... Uh... Didn't notice you."

Al just stared at Ed, trying to somehow consolidate what he had just seen with the image he'd always known of his brother. Edward Elric, the guy who had claimed he was only wearing black until they invented a darker color. The guy who didn't even like being caught humming for fear someone might notice he wasn't actually terrible at singing. The same person who had seemed to restrain from all kinds of fun and letting loose and... everything. And now he looked like a drunk rainbow had vomited on him.

"Who even are you?" Al finally said after a minute. Ed blinked and looked down at himself, as if he didn't even realize what was so different. "What happened to you?"

"Um..." Ed shrugged and picked at his shirt with two fingers. "The gay agenda?"

Al could only stare at Ed. He didn't even know what that meant, let alone how to respond to it.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't ask me what this was. I don't even really honestly know myself. I just know that over the years of me loving FMA, I've seen lots of interpretations of "modern Ed" and what he would look like as a teenager in this world and time. And I was just amused the other day thinking about how... there's no way that Ed wouldn't end up deeply involved in (and loving) modern meme and internet culture. So I guess this happened.
> 
> And yes, Ed's wearing probably the most offensive version of an LGBT pride shirt he could find. I didn't really bother going into his sexuality or anything here because it's not like it's that kind of story, but I would assume he's not necessarily gay as in only attracted to men, but he's also aware he'd not completely straight, either. Fill it in with whatever you like, lol.
> 
> Also no one can resist the power that is Counting Stars. Especially Ed.


End file.
